Monday, July 1, 2013

Tell, Show, Do, Apply: The Anatomy of Good Instruction

There are a lot of opinions about how to design quality instruction. New
technologies, theories, and processes are continually created and
touted as the next greatest thing for instructional designers. And while
these new technologies can be powerful, there are a few key
instructional strategies that must be implemented to maximize learning
effectiveness.

These principles have consistently been shown to increase learning and engagement, but often instructional designers
become enamored by the new technologies and fail to implement these
strategies effectively. In this post, we will describe these strategies
and show how you can use them effectively in your design.

We can categorize all instructional activities into two basic categories:

Stuff that the Instruction or Instructor does, and

Stuff that the Learner does. Within these categories there are four
basic strategies for creating excellent instruction: tell, show, do, and
apply.

The Four Basic Strategies for Creating Excellent Instruction

TellThe first component of good instruction is the Tell strategy.
This is the strategy used to provide the learner with key information
related to their learning. Facts, concepts, rules, and procedures can
all be conveyed using the Tell strategy. For
example, if you were designing instruction to teach customer service
representatives how to offer a new product to their existing customers,
you would tell them the specific steps they would go through to offer
the product and even show a visual outline of the steps.

ShowThe second component of good instruction is the Show strategy.
This is the strategy used to demonstrate examples of what you want to
teach. In the customer service example, you would show a variety of real
examples of an agent offering the product to the learner. You would
probably show "non-examples" as well- examples of what not to do when
offering the products. These examples will help the learner see how the
information you told them is applied.

DoAfter providing a variety of examples, you should provide your learners with the opportunity to Do what you have taught them.
In the customer service example, the learners take several calls with
actual customers and offer them the product. Trainers and managers
listen in on these calls and provide the learners with feedback and
guidance. It is important that learners be given plenty of feedback as
they apply what they have learned so that they can improve their skills
and abilities. As in this example, the is application of the new
knowledge should replicate the real-world environment as much as
possible to make the learning experience authentic and engaging.

ApplyThe final component is Apply.
In this step, learners plan out how they will apply their knowledge in
their own environments. In the customer service example, the learners
plan out their own personalized scripts for specific situations and set
goals for offering and selling products to their clients.

The next time you design a piece of instruction, ask yourself how
well you are using these strategies. If you will conscientiously apply
them, you will find increased student learning and instructional design
effectiveness.